A vacuum cleaner is an appliance for removing foreign materials such as dirt, dust and debris by using a strong suction force generated by a motor assembly. The vacuum cleaner includes a cooling system for cooling a heating element, e.g., an electrical cord installed therein preferably.
Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown one of such prior art vacuum cleaners disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,611,989 entitled “VACUUM CLEANER HAVING COOLING FEATURES”. As shown, the conventional vacuum cleaner includes a suction head 10 for passing foreign substances laden air therethrough and a casing 20 connected to the suction head 10.
The casing 20 includes a dust chamber 22 having a dust bag 24 for capturing coarse foreign substances from the foreign substance laden air, an appliance chamber 26 having a fan motor assembly 30 for generating a suction force and a cord chamber 40 for storing an electrical cord 42, these chambers 22, 26 and 40 being separated by respective partitions 44, 46 and 48.
The dust chamber 22 is located in the front portion of the casing 20, and the appliance chamber 26 and the cord chamber 40 are disposed in the rear portion of the casing 20 behind the dust chamber 22 and separated by the partition 48.
The fan motor assembly 30 has a motor housing 32, an acoustically absorbent sleeve 34 installed around a periphery part of the motor housing 32 and a plurality of discharge openings 36 for discharging an air from the motor housing 32 to the appliance chamber 26 therethrough.
The partition 44 located between the dust chamber 22 and the appliance chamber 26 has an air suction opening 45 through which an air from the dust bag 24 flows to the fan motor assembly 30, and the partition 46 installed between the dust chamber 22 and the cord chamber 40 has an air hole 47 for an air communication therebetween.
Further, the casing 20 includes an exhaust filter 49 for filtering fine foreign substances from an air from the fan motor assembly 30 and a plurality of exhaust outlets 50 for discharging an air passing through the exhaust filter 49 outside.
The operation of the conventional vacuum cleaner will now be described.
When the vacuum cleaner is driven by inserting the electrical cord 42 to the plug(not shown) via a cord passage hole(not shown), the foreign substances laden air is suctioned to the dust bag 24 through the suction head 10 by means of the fan motor assembly 30 so that the coarse foreign substances are accommodated in the dust bag 24. Then, a portion of an air passing through the dust bag 24 is drawn to the fan motor assembly 30 via the air suction opening 45 and then discharged to the appliance chamber 26 via the discharge openings 36. When the air is discharged through the discharge openings 36, the noise is generated but is reduced by the acoustically absorbent sleeve 34. Thus discharged air is purified by the exhaust filter 49 and finally discharged outside the vacuum cleaner through the exhaust outlets 50. The remaining air passing through the dust bag 24 flows inside the cord chamber 40 via the air hole 47 to cool the electrical cord 42.
In such a configuration, the air for cooling the electrical cord flows from the dust chamber to the cord chamber through the air hole directly to be discharged to outside via the cord passage hole. In other words, since the air is discharged without being purified by the exhaust filter, insanitary foreign substances are discharged to outside and an unpleasant odor is generated.
Further, it is impossible to cool heating elements other than the electrical cord.